


Pain Management

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo Fanfiction Fills 2016 [10]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Chronic Pain, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Pain, Spoilers, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 08:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8572231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Sometimes the pain comes back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I gave myself a break this one time and did not spend four hours pouring over Wikipedia to figure out the minutiae of nerve injuries, so forgive me if anything’s wrong in that area. My basic understanding is that "pain can and does happen", and Strange does say "pain is an old friend of mine" in the film...

Sometimes the pain comes back.  
  
That’s how nerve damage operates, really: One minute you’re fine, the next you’re in pain.  
  
(Or, in Stephen’s case, you’re not-screaming-in-agony one minute and then perfectly ready and willing to do so the next.)  
  
Not being able to use his hands properly is infuriating enough, but the random (and sometimes not-so-random) bouts of pain are enough to drive him insane.  
  
Even though the injuries have been around for months, even though he _should_ be accustomed to working carefully with them, he’s not. He still moves and thinks like a man with two perfectly working hands, and it’s only in certain moments, like when he’s narrowly avoided spilling a cup of tea on a book that’s probably older than his apartment building in New York (hell, it might even be older than New York, too) that he remembers that _oh, that’s right, my **hands** are completely fucked to hell, that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?_  
  
Sometimes it’s a sharp, stabbing pain, and other times it’s this _ache_ that makes him feel like an old man- it doesn’t help that he’s starting graying around the temples, the stress of being a brain surgeon and the sudden stress of _not_ being one both had a role in advancing that coloring far sooner than was fair.  
  
The stabbing comes and goes relatively quickly.  
  
The aching sticks around, and sometimes it’s just irritating, but other times it can really start to _hurt_. Like, he-would-cry-if-he-wasn’t-a-grown-fucking-man hurt.  
  
(He tells himself it’ll get better with time, but with seven surgeries and months of time of his body to heal, he’s starting to realize that this is going to be a semi-regular occurrence unless he can find a way to use magic to heal them the way that Pangborn healed his spine.)  
  
Even if he wasn’t too broke to afford the more advanced medication he would need to manage this level of pain, Stephen’s reasonably certain that there isn’t a CVS or a Walgreens nearby that would be able to fill his prescription. Getting his medical records transferred would be paperwork-colored hell.  
  
And the heck with asking for a Tylenol or ibuprofen or something; Stephen is quickly learning that he’s more likely to get a staff upside the head. Besides, he doesn’t have it in him to begging for some relief that will ultimately only be temporary. He’s done enough begging for one lifetime, thank you.  
  
But boy, oh boy, does it start to look appealing after a while.  
  
The Ancient One knows, with reasonable certainty, how severely Stephen’s hands are damaged- at least, he thinks she does. Mordo, Wong, and a few others are aware that he’s been injured in some way, but Stephen doubts they know the true extent of the problem; and for now he wants to keep it that way.  
  
When he pulls a book off the shelf in the library and drops it, or fumbles with weapons whilst fighting, he passes it off as clumsiness. More than once, he’s seen them roll their eyes and shake their heads as if to say ‘oh God, he is so hopeless’, and he says absolutely nothing, because irritation is now and always has been better than pity.  
  
He does a lot of reading. Never before has he been so aware of the amount of muscle and nerve activity that goes into holding a book or turning a page until his fingers are screaming and cramping from it. To think that he had once done simple things like this without ever thinking twice about it. Reading in astral form is only slightly better; the interaction between his astral body and the physical world is just enough to cause discomfort in his hands, but not quite as quickly as reading the normal way, and soon enough he’s doing almost all of his reading in astral form at night when his body is busy sleeping.  
  
But combat training is never as easy, because Stephen can’t fight in astral form (not yet, anyway), and even if he could, Mordo would probably not go for it. Just the movements to form that whip… cat’s-cradle… towel-thing he makes with his magic is enough to set the joints in his hands aching.  
  
“Come now, Strange,” Mordo taunts, not entirely good-naturedly, “I know you were a doctor-”  
  
“- _am_ a doctor-” Stephen insists.  
  
Mordo ignores him. “-but this, this is sad. Master Hamir has one hand and he can do these things.”  
  
_Does he ever have to try gripping things with what’s left of the other hand?_ Stephen wants to snap. That Master Hamir can conjure portals without both hands is one thing, but Stephen’s ability to use _both_ hands and fingers is impaired. Using magic is one thing; holding onto a physical object is something else entirely. It doesn’t matter if Stephen’s fingers suddenly go numb when he’s conjuring a portal, because he doesn’t need to feel them for that; if they go numb when he’s holding a weapon, he loses his grip, it falls or gets knocked out of his hand.  
  
But he doesn’t say a thing, because Mordo doesn’t like excuses and Stephen’s determined to get it down anyway, with time.  
  
Lots and lots of time.  
  
One day, the Ancient One calls for him.  
  
Stephen can’t deny he’s nervous. He’s never really _failed_ anything before, never this dismally anyway, and he figures this must have been what it was like for those kids back in school who did terribly on a test and got called up to the teacher’s desk after class for a ‘talk’.  
  
Can he get expelled? Is that what’s going to happen here?  
  
Maybe he’ll get a demotion to a remedial class for people who are too thick to do what’s agonizingly simple for everyone else?  
  
The room is (almost) empty. The Ancient One is sitting on one side of a small table, with two cups of tea before her. She smiles, serene as always. “Doctor, please sit.”  
  
He does.  
  
She calmly slides the other cup of tea towards him. At this point he knows she didn’t spike his tea that first time, that he really did go on a cosmic rollercoaster ride through multiple dimensions, but he stills hesitates, instinctively cautious.  
  
“I’d like to discuss your progress,” The Ancient One says, and oh yes, this _does_ in fact sound like the lead-up to a teacher-student discussion on how we can bump that F up to a C.  
  
“You mean my lack of it,” Stephen mutters bluntly.  
  
Then he figures ‘Oh, what the hell, if it _is_ spiked maybe the LSD will mess me up enough to make my embarrassing inability to do the most basic of shit here less painful’ and takes a decent swig of the tea.  
  
Immediately, he realizes it tastes funny.  
  
Stephen’s already learned once that being rude with the Ancient One is a very bad idea, but despite his attempts to just go with the flow in Kamar-taj, he’s just not the sort of person to just let things roll by him without any scrutiny whatsoever.  
  
“Is there something in this?”  
  
The Ancient One opens her mouth.  
  
“ _Other_ than honey?”  
  
She thinks for a moment. “St. John’s Wort, and a very mild bit of Valerian root. The first is a painkiller, the other helps with muscle spasms. I debated adding the Valerian root, since the combination of the two can cause dizziness and confusion, and Master Mordo tells me you don’t need any help in those departments. Do let me know if you experience any adverse effects.”  
  
Stephen deflates a bit. The good-natured jab aside, this is really kind of her, especially given what a little shit he was when he first came to her; and, of course, given that he’d just hesitated when she’d given him the tea like he thought she was going to send him on a journey with some purple dragons.  
  
“Thanks,” He mumbles, casting his eyes down. _What an ass you are,_ he thinks. _This kind of thing is why Christine broke up with you._  
  
“You’re welcome. Judging from what I’ve seen of some of your training sessions, it’s quite obvious that it’s not simply a matter of natural clumsiness that’s hindering your progress.” She gives him that knowing smile that he finds irritating and humbling all at once. “There can be value in allowing others to know your pain, Doctor.”  
  
“Yeah, well, that’s a little difficult without sounding like a whiny little-” Stephen catches himself, his brain-to-mouth filter kicking in just in time to edit, “-brat.”  
  
“Others have come to Kamar-taj for healing, much like Mr. Pangborn,” The Ancient One explains, pouring more tea into his cup. “With help, he did all of the things you are now learning to do. We are not unaccustomed to making reasonable accommodations for those who require them.”  
  
It probably _should_ have occurred to him that a guy with a severed spine came to this place and graduated with top-marks, and that really, that’s a hell of a bit more difficult to work with than a guy with messed up hands.  
  
_Typical Strange stubbornness,_ he hears Christine tut in his head.  
   
“In any case, while I suspect your difficulty with your lessons currently stems from a stubborn inability to look beyond the physical, it is also possible that your pain could be contributing to the problem. Beneficially, it can be used as a technique to ground us in so-called reality; detrimentally, it can distract us from looking beyond what is immediately demanding our mind’s attention.”  
  
“True enough,” Stephen says, gently coiling and uncoiling his fingers to test the pain even though he knows it’s too soon for the tea to have an affect. “I’ll, uh, try drinking this regularly and see how it does. And keep up with the reading, and the practicing, and all that. I’ll get there.”  
  
He’s going for confidence, not arrogance, and hopes the former’s what’s coming across clearly.  
  
If the latter is coming across, the Ancient One gives no indication.  
  
“Then drink up, Doctor Strange.”  
  
-End

 


End file.
